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These guys make surfboards from mushrooms. Seriously. We've interviewed them.

Otherwise known as The guys making surfboards from dehydrated mushrooms.

We caught up with David to find out what's going on.

The finished board. Glassed and ready to go.

H. So. Where did the idea come from? And don't say 'mushrooms'.

D. In 2013 we met Gavin and Alex from Ecovative Design at the boardroom show in Southern California and knew we had to be involved. We spent the next 6 months collaborating and getting a mould built. And the next year learning how to grow a 6' mushroom and glass it into a surfboard.

D. Mushroom mycelium is basically the root of the mushroom. So what would be underground, or in the tree, not on the surface, not the actual mushroom cap or fan. What the team at Ecovative Design does is re-purpose agricultural waste (stick, stems, leaves, stalks, etc.) of hemp and corn farms and grind it into a mulch like you see in the pictures.

From there they spray their mycelium formula all over the material and let it grow for a day or so to ensure the mushroom grows and nothing else, like bad mould or dandelions. Once the mushroom takes hold it continues to grow until refrigerated.

Essentially what we get then is a bag of mulch. It takes around 15 pounds of material to grow our 6' surfboard. I break up the mulch, pack it into the mould, hook up a bunch of water and air hoses, latch everything together and seal it all up. It takes 7-10 days for it to grow.

During that time the root begins to eat the mulch and replace it with more root. It continues this process until about 60% of the material is now root and the remainder mulch. After that I put it in the homemade dryer and let it cook for a couple of days.

The dehydrator.

H. Do you shape and sand the boards afterwards or mould them to shape?

D. This is a part of the process that we're refining; shapers prefer material they can carve like foam. Most of the shaping we currently do is trimming off overgrown material and shaving down layers until we have uniform rails, deck, and bottom. Other than that we’ve cut in a few different tail designs to see how it affects the ride.

The finished blank.

H. How do they ride?

D. They ride like any other board. Not a high performance EPS machine but just as well as a solid poly, kind of old school but better.

H. Can you tell us what the sap is you use to glass the boards?

D. We use Entropy Super Sap for every board we make, not just the mushroom. It's simply better than epoxy; less toxic and low V.O.C.'s. Using our mushroom blank, hemp cloth, and the entropy resin we have an ultra-eco-friendly surfboard.

H. How heavy are the boards?

D. We’re working on a few ways to bring the weight down. Our current mushroom completed weighs around 9lbs, but you really can't tell when you're in the water. We’re looking forward to seeing some big airs blasted.

H. How's the crowdfunding going?

D. Crowd funding is difficult. We've dedicated a lot of time and money on our project and getting it this far. It's difficult putting yourself out there and hoping people will understand and believe in you. We have the campaign up and are otherwise plugging away in our workshop doing our thing.

I'll keep posting updates when I can and hopefully with attention from folks like you it will slowly start to build up. I feel like this should be worth $100,000 to start, easily. Especially since we're selling awesome eco-friendly products right there! Unfortunately like with the other big crowd funding sites there is quite a bit of fees involved. GoFundMe was one of the lowest but we're looking at nearly 20% right off the top. In order to make any money we have to add that into the cost. In short, it's quite a headache.

Packed lunch?

H. Will you name the different board designs after types of mushroom? Like calling a big wave gun The Deathcap?

D. We did name our first mushroom surfboard after a mushroom, the "El Portobello". It's a play on words really. Our favourite local surf spot is called El Porto in Manhattan Beach, CA. Our El Portobello is short and round so it seemed fitting. I believe it's a trend that will continue. We have some ideas in mind, but I might use Deathcap! Probably already a cool metal band named that!

The final product, El Portobello. In all its mushroomy goodness.

To find out more about the project and pledge your support visit their Go Fund Me page.

Comments

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Click on any image to view it in the shop.
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